Slamming the thing behind her, she wanted to run to her car, but refused to give in to panic even as she expected him to come after her.
And yet the man stayed put, looming in the window of the door she had put to good use, watching her while she got in, started her engine and put the Audi into gear.
As she backed out of the drive, her heart was pounding—
Especially as a truly terrifying thought occurred to her.
Shoving her hand into her purse, she felt around for her phone, and when she found it, she went into her contact lists, selected one, and hit send. Frazzled by fear, she put the cell up to her ear even though she was Bluetooth enabled—and it was against the law in New York not to be hands-free.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring—
“Hi! I was hoping to hear from you.”
Sola sagged in the driver’s seat, her head falling back against the rest. “Hi, Mark.”
God, the sound of the man’s voice was a relief.
“Are you okay?” her trainer asked.
She thought of that bloody blade. “I am. Yes. Are you just getting off work?”
As they embarked on a pleasant enough conversation, she drove off, her foot heavy on the gas pedal, the landscape streaking by: White snow. Grungy, salted road. Skeletal trees. Little old-fashioned cabin with a light on inside. Flat, bald space over the river to the left.
Every time she blinked, she saw the shape in the windows of that door. Watching. Planning. Wanting…
Her.
And goddamn it, her body was desperate to be caught by him.
SIXTY
As Qhuinn rematerialized, his flashlight illuminated the final cabin. He didn’t wait for the others this time, just marched forward, gunning for the door, which was intact and shut tight—
His first clue that something was off came when he grabbed the rough-hewn handle: a low-level electrical charge licked into his hand and traveled up his arm.
Retracting his palm, he shook things out, his instincts going on high alert.
“What is it?” Rhage asked as the Brother stalked up onto the shallow porch.
Qhuinn glanced around, noting that Blay and John were on the periphery. “I don’t know.”
Rhage went for the door—and had the same reaction, recoiling sharply. “What the fuck.”
“I know, right,” Qhuinn muttered as he stepped back and ran his light around the exterior.
The two windows on either side of the entrance had been boarded up, and as he walked over and looked down the structure’s flank, the same was true of the ones on that side, as well.
“Fuck this,” Rhage growled. The Brother took three steps back and then rushed at the door, his heavy shoulder angled like a battering ram.
And what do you know, the impact splintered the wooden panels—
All at once, a blinding light seared through the night, illuminating the forest like a bomb had gone off, turning Rhage getting thrown backward into a movie.
As Blay and John rushed across to do a damage assessment on the fighter, Qhuinn lunged forward, bracing himself as he went for the jambs, expecting to get nailed with a couple hundred volts’ worth of God-only-knows-what.
Instead, he hit nothing but air, his forward momentum so great he had to tuck into a ball and roll to keep from landing on his face. A breath later, he punched up off the floor and landed in a crouch, gun in one hand, flashlight in another.
Something smelled bad.
“Behind you,” Blay said, as a second beam of light joined his own.
The air inside the cabin was curiously warm, as if there were a heater plugged in somewhere—except that wasn’t possible. No electricity and no gas tank. And no one had been here for a while, going by the undisturbed layer of dust on the floorboards and the delicate, vertical cobwebs that hung from the ceiling as motionless as heavy ropes.
“What’s that,” Blay demanded.
As Qhuinn brought his beam around, he frowned. There were a number of what appeared to be oil drums up against the far wall, the grouping clustered together, as if they’d been scared by something and had circled the wagons for self-protection.
Qhuinn walked over, all the while panning his flashlight in fat circles, and he frowned once more as he got a good look at the large-bore canisters. None of them had lids, and his light seemed to reflect off some sort of oil.
“What…the hell is this?”
Leaning over the closest one, he took a deep breath in through his nose, and got a sinus burn full of slayer stench. Going by the way his beam didn’t penetrate the surface of the liquid, he knew it could be only one thing, and you sure as shit couldn’t use it to power a heater or a generator.
It was the blood of the Omega.
“Behind you,” Rhage said, as the Brother entered.
A soft whistle announced that John had come in as well.
“Is that what I think it is?” Blay muttered as he stood beside Qhuinn.
Qhuinn put his flashlight between his teeth and reached forward with his bare hand. Just as he made contact with the viscous nasty, something surged within the drum—
“Fuck!” he shouted, jumping back.
As his flashlight landed on the floor and rolled to the side, Blay’s beam illuminated what had moved.
An arm.
There was someone inside the drum.
“Jesus Christ,” Blay breathed.
Behind them, Rhage’s voice barked loudly, “V? We need backup out here. Stat.”
Qhuinn bent down and snagged his light. Returning it to the oily liquid, he watched as that forearm moved again in slow motion just under the surface, the shift bringing the outside of the wrist and the back of the hand into view….
Something flashed, the passing glint catching Qhuinn’s eye. Reangling his beam, he bent further over the drum.
The hand wasn’t right, its joints deformed, all or part of each finger gone, as if put through a grinder….
That glimmer broke through the cesspool of the Omega’s blood once more.
It was…a ring?
“Wait, wait, Qhuinn—you need to pull back—”
Qhuinn ignored the commentary as he leaned in even farther, getting closer—closer….
Closer…
At first, he couldn’t believe what he was looking at. He simply couldn’t be looking at a family crest ring.
But what else could it be? It was on the forefinger, the only digit that hadn’t been hacked off. And it was gold—even through the black oil, the yellow glow was obvious. And the ring itself had a broad face into which was pressed a—
“Qhuinn,” Rhage said sharply. “Get the fuck away—”
The arm moved again, the pale hand breaching the surface of the liquid, appearing as a specter’s might from out of the grave, reaching out….
The Omega’s blood retracted from the surface of the ring, revealing…
“Qhuinn, I am not playing—”
Noise exploded in the cabin, filling the air.
He was completely unaware that it was a shout coming from his own mouth.
At first, Blay thought that whatever was in the drum had grabbed onto Qhuinn and pulled him in—and that was why Qhuinn screamed. On instinct, he jumped forward and grabbed onto Qhuinn’s waist, throwing out his anchor and yanking back.
What came out of that drum would haunt Blay’s nightmares for years…decades afterward.
In fact, what was inside hadn’t latched onto Qhuinn; it was the other way around. And as Blay hauled back, a male form was extracted from the tight squeeze, the Omega’s blood pouring out in rivers, splashing onto the cold wooden planks of the cabin’s floor, hitting Blay’s shitkickers and leathers, drenching Qhuinn.
Qhuinn had to scramble to keep his grip from slipping off, his gun and flashlight long forgotten, his gloved hands slapping and scratching to keep from losing contact….
As they hoisted…
The oil drum fell over onto its side as the male sprawled out flat at their feet.
No one moved. It was as if they had all stepped in and assumed their positions in a tableau.
Blay recognized who it was immediately.
He couldn’t believe it.
The dead had returned to the living…in a manner of speaking.